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By Bloomberg

Oil neared a bear market amid a rout in commodities as an unexpected increase in U.S. crude stockpiles exacerbated a glut.

September futures were little changed in New York after tumbling 3.3 percent Wednesday. Inventories expanded by 2.47 million barrels to 463.9 million last week, government data showed, compared with a forecast in a Bloomberg survey for supplies to drop by 2.2 million. The downturn in the global oil industry may be more severe than in 1986, when business endured the deepest slump in 45 years, according to Morgan Stanley.

Oil has lost almost 20 percent the past six weeks, nearing a common definition of a bear market, amid signs the global surplus will persist. Prices are swept up in a broader selloff in raw materials, which have fallen to a 13-year low. The U.S. is producing crude near the fastest rate in three decades and leading OPEC members are pumping at record levels.

“The market remains in a clear downtrend,” Ric Spooner, a chief analyst at CMC Markets in Sydney, said by phone. “The increase in U.S. inventories was depressing for the market.”

West Texas Intermediate for September delivery was at $49.32 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up 13 cents, at 2 p.m. Sydney time. The contract fell $1.67 to $49.19 on Wednesday. Front-month prices are down 19.7 percent from this year’s highest close on June 10. The volume of all futures traded was 38 percent below the 100-day average.

U.S. Supplies

Brent for September settlement was 2 cents lower at $56.11 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The contract dropped 91 cents to $56.13 on Wednesday. The European benchmark crude was at a premium of $6.78 to WTI.

The Bloomberg Commodity Index of 22 raw materials slid on Wednesday to the lowest close since April 2002, dragged down by a decline in gold as the U.S. Federal Reserve prepares to raise interest rates. The measure was little changed on Thursday.

Stockpiles at Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for WTI, rose by 813,000 barrels to 57.9 million through July 17, according to an Energy Information Administration report Wednesday. U.S. inventories remain almost 100 million barrels above the five-year seasonal average.

Output slid by 4,000 barrels to 9.56 million a day. The nation pumped 9.61 million a day through June 5, the highest level in weekly data since January 1983.

Rising production from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is more than compensating for slowing growth in U.S. shale oil, Morgan Stanley said in a report dated Tuesday. OPEC has boosted output by 1.5 million barrels a day since February, an amount roughly equal to a year’s increase in world demand, it said. Still, the bank expects the industry to recover before the crisis reaches the extent of the 1980s.

While the outlook for commodities remains grim this year, oil will fall a bit less than previously forecast, the World Bank said Wednesday. Commodities are trading at their lowest in more than a decade following a bull market fueled by growth in developing nations such as China and India.